Study Abroad and Domestic Study Away

My time abroad in New Zealand has changed me forever. I came in very attached to doing things a certain way. Everything had a uniform way of going, and my life plan had to follow that uniform. I was so focused on doing things right that I wasn’t doing much at all. Coming here shifted my life view. I became more comfortable with not knowing and focused more on becoming someone I was proud of, someone living for today and not tomorrow.  

Everyone thinks that learning to live without attaching yourself to school, work, money, or our social understanding of success means you are accepting failure, but that is not true. The more you know about our world, about how to interact with strangers who say things like ‘sweet as’ or ‘chur’, the more you have to offer back to the world.  

Going abroad taught me to learn in different ways, showing that life outside the classroom was just as valuable as evenings spent analyzing rhetoric, data, or ecosystems. Being abroad taught me how to balance life, and how not to put all of my eggs in one basket.  

But here’s what I learned about education; you can still be good at it, devote yourself to it, and love to learn even while learning who you are. They are not separate from each other. The point of going abroad is not to shove your studies aside to be out in the world, the point is to gather as much information as you can, and spend time in different types of classrooms.  

Going abroad taught me that I am more than a college student, but that I wouldn’t be who I am today without what I have learned sitting in classrooms at LFC and in Dunedin, New Zealand. Going abroad to study has been the greatest gift of my life. I have thanks to give to Ingrid H. and George L. Speros who sponsored a study abroad scholarship so that students like me could have the opportunity to learn everything they could. 

Milford Sound Lake: